Smart Meter Spying

Utility companies across the U.S. are installing smart meters in customers’ homes, touting the technology’s energy-saving ways, but opponents argue that the meters are opening a Pandora’s box of privacy concerns.
The smart energy meters read electric or gas usage, and enable a power company to collect detailed usage data on a particular home or building. But the readings also gather personal information that some critics argue is too intrusive.

The information gathered from smart meters includes unencrypted data that can, among other details, reveal when a homeowner is away from their residence for long periods of time. The electric wattage readings can even decipher what type of activities a customer is engaged in, such as watching TV, using a computer or even how long someone spends cooking.
“It’s in the nature of technology to be neutral in the benefits and the risks; it’s how the info is used,” Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, tells FoxNews.com. “Look at smartphones. No one can argue the benefits of having one. But on the other hand, it’s the best tracking device.”
The Vermont ACLU has, in the past few years, participated in the privacy debate over smart energy meters. The group says that one major issue with data collected from the meters is the same with cellphone data. The agency has filed lawsuits against law enforcement agencies in the state over cellphone data being harvested through secret inquests and used to track an individual’s whereabouts.
The group has suggested a proposal to the state government so the same won’t happen with smart-meter data.
“We have put up quite a strong argument for user utility data,” Gilbert said. “This is why we presented a proposition in which we said that police departments should not get customer information from a utility.
“Instead, any subpoena should be issued directly to the customer.”
The U.S. Department of Energy has even admitted that privacy and data access is a concern as far back as 2010 in a report on the smart meter technology.
“Advances in Smart Grid technology could significantly increase the amount of potentially available information about personal energy consumption,” reads a statement from the report, titled “Data Access and Privacy Issues Related to Smart Grid Technologies.”
The report states, “Such information could reveal personal details about the lives of consumers, such as their daily schedules (including times when they are at or away from home or asleep), whether their homes are equipped with alarm systems, whether they own expensive electronic equipment such as plasma TVs, and whether they use certain types of medical equipment.”
The report recommended that states should consider a condition in which customers can authorize third parties access and that there should be a prohibition on disclosure of customer data to said third parties.
Ohio residents are dealing with the third-party collection issue, as police agencies work to obtain utility data to determine if suspects have been growing marijuana in their homes.
In 2011, the Columbus Dispatch reported that at an average of 60 subpoenas are filed each month statewide by law-enforcement agencies seeking energy-use records from various utility companies.
“We're obligated when we get these requests,” a spokesperson for American Electric Power said to the newspaper at the time. “There's not an option to say no.”
The subpoenas allow investigators access to utility records for a particular house they are investigating, as well as for a few other homes on the block in an attempt to determine if there is a “grow house,” which is likely to use three to five times more power than anyone else when harvesting marijuana.
In Philadelphia, customers of PECO have complained and opted out of having the smart meters installed because of its two-way communication capabilities.
Last year, California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) was required after an investigation to pay $390,000 to the state’s General Fund after it was discovered that they were spying on anti-smart meter activist groups.
“Imagine if AT&T set out to install FCC-regulated cell network repeaters on everyone's rooftops -- all homes in the US -- without permission or compensation. That they just went out and did it, in the interest of improving their network coverage, and improving their for-profit bottom line," Josh del Sol, a researcher and director of a documentary titled “Take Back Your Power,” said to FoxNews.com. "Pretty ridiculous, right? This is theft, and if they were a government agency it would be an obvious violation of the latter part of the Fifth Amendment in addition to the Fourth."
"How, pray tell, are utilities able to get away with what amounts to the exact same thing," he added. "They [power utilities] would say that 'they have easement,' but does this easement include the right to broadcast an FCC-regulated microwave transmitter on your home, taking your private property to do so, for their benefit, and without your consent?"

Despite the ongoing chorus against smart meters and the possibility for intrusion, some experts say that it is nothing but mass hysteria.
“Privacy zealots obsess over something that wouldn’t concern a rational person,” Roger Pilon, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, said to FoxNews.com. “It’s the kind of mass hysteria we’ve seen in other eras for other issues.”
“The NSA has better things to do than monitor our A/C use.”

"Freedom isn't free" --Colonel Walter Hitchcock
“The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.” General 'Mad Dog' James Mattis
non semper erit aestas- It will not always be summer (be prepared for hard times)!!

Im not sure about the spying thing but i know u felt better when they removed the sensus box that was causing fires in sask this past year,worried everytime it rained or snowed that the POS would short out
D

“Privacy zealots obsess over something that wouldn’t concern a rational person,” Roger Pilon, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, said to FoxNews.com. “It’s the kind of mass hysteria we’ve seen in other eras for other issues.”
“The NSA has better things to do than monitor our A/C use.”

A perfect example of the Communist Manifesto rule regarding the ridiculing and marginalizing of the State's opponents. The Liberal Left uses this tactic very often.

Please use correct English. Show the world Americans aren't illiterate.
There, their, they're are different words. Use them properly.
Lose and loose have different meanings.
"Im" and "Ill" mean nothing without the apostrophe.
Capitalization and punctuation are your friends.
Text-speak and hashtags get you into the ignore list.
Commas are NOT your friend when used in large herds......

Yes, they do. But they will do it anyways, and spend your money doing it.

“Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think." John Galt (Ayn Rand)

Patents are not evil, profit is not a dirty word, providing for your family's future is not a sin, and what is mine is not your's just because you want it. Kellory.I have received NO secret government orders.(Watch for this notice to be removed)

Yes, they do. But they will do it anyways, and spend your money doing it.

Click to expand...

Our tax dollars hard at work, allowing them to watch us in every way, every day.....
The founding fathers were very good at understanding what tyranny looked like. But I bet they could have never contemplated such lax citizenry... that would allow this type of tyranny to take place!! Things need to change... and it will not be easy.

"Freedom isn't free" --Colonel Walter Hitchcock
“The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.” General 'Mad Dog' James Mattis
non semper erit aestas- It will not always be summer (be prepared for hard times)!!

When I can link in to my power account and see usage up to 2 mins difference later , the WiFi plus everyone's also around me since In in series with them ,means A LOT of WiFi & who's home etc.
Read who is makeing these units , you won't see a FCC or any North American approval , China again & can they see your house ??

Next one that falls overboard I'll get it to ya from WA .
then tell me where I might find the marking , China is in two places on the one I tried to dry out .
Every house that hasn't restricted one has a smart meter installed & on new building power construction site temp poles in BC !

May be true for Canada, but definitely not here in the States..... If it is an RF Emitter, It MUST have an FCC Type ID if it is imported into the USA, and if it has No ID, US Customs will seize it as contraband when found.

Bruce in alaska (BTPost) An Atheist will never be able to say, "I TOLD YOU SO"!! ....

May be true for Canada, but definitely not here in the States..... If it is an RF Emitter, It MUST have an FCC Type ID if it is imported into the USA, and if it has No ID, US Customs will seize it as contraband when found.

Posting this hear because smart meters are an issue. People have complained of illness since these meters have been installed. Now there don't seem to be surge protection:

A power surge left thousands without power for most of the day in Stockton after smart meters on their homes exploded on Monday.
The explosions started after a truck crashed into a utility pole, causing a surge around 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning.
when the customers in more than 5,000 homes get their power back on will depend on how badly damaged their meters are.
Neighbors in the South Stockton area described it as a large pop, a bomb going off, and strong enough to shake a house.
“The neighbor across the street, his meter doesn’t look as bad but his receptacles are all blackened.” said Brad Abernathy.

Well, Yes, IF, the device uses RF Frequencies, AND they are just using the PowerLines as a Transmission Line. In that Case it would be covered under CFR47Part15 of the Commissions Technical Rules.... As a NOTE here, Any use of PowerLines as the Transmission Lines, requires that EACH and EVERY Transformer, be modified so that the Induced RF can Bypass around the Transformer, which is a very expensive Retrofit of the Distribution System.

Bruce in alaska (BTPost) An Atheist will never be able to say, "I TOLD YOU SO"!! ....

Well they certainly didn't replace any transformers in my neighborhood, and my COOP reads all the meters remotely, and my garden makes reading the meter by IR impossible, and I haven't seen a meter reader in 4-5 years.